1 [U,C] the time when a baby is born; the process of being born:
The baby weighed three kilos at birth. * John was present at the birth of both his children. * It was a difficult birth. * a hospital / home birth * Mark has been blind from birth. * Please state your date of birth.
2 [sing.] the beginning of a new situation, idea, place, etc:
the birth of a new society in South Africa
3 [U] a person's origin or the social position of their family:
Anne was French by birth but lived most of her life in Italy. * a woman of noble birth
IDIOMS
give birth (to sb/sth) to produce a baby or young animal:
She died shortly after giving birth. * Mary gave birth to a healthy baby girl. * (figurative) It was the study of history that gave birth to the social sciences.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for birth is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is birth a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, birth is tagged as noun.
Does birth appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — birth appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
